


The Good Daughter and Other Defamatory Myths

by Denebola



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Warning: Slight Body Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 15:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2155626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denebola/pseuds/Denebola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamora vacillates between clinging to what love she held for her sister and mourning what never was. In any case, that door is closed. She knows that she has no right or reason to miss Nebula. Yet it seems that her heart is set on betraying more than just Thanos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Good Daughter and Other Defamatory Myths

**Author's Note:**

> What a great movie. And I loved it just as it was, but who wouldn't want more sisterly back story? So I wrote some stuff. It took forever. Space is hard. Unbeta'd with rushed editing, so all mistakes are my own.

**_Clink-whir-click. Scrape-whir-clink. Click-clang-clang-whir._**

Rocket was building again. A weapon. It was generally weapons with him. Likely due to his anxious nature; a light sleeper, nervous eater, irritable flyer. Diverting his energy into "arts and crafts," as Peter called it, relieved some of that tetchy aggression. The racket and clutter of wires, tools and metallic segments that were already dangerous before being assembled into Rocket's inventions tended to send Drax grumbling out of the common area in search of peace and quiet. But not her.

Initially, she lingered to ensure that the resident engineer wouldn't forge some kind of vaporizing artillery designed to unintentionally ravage the Milano mid-flight. It had happened once so far, though in all fairness the ship actually looked and smelled cleaner once some of Peter's junk had been sucked out the gaping hole in the wall and obliterated by the oncoming fire trailing closely behind them. But then that was his reward for "contributing" to their escape by rashly pressing the blinking button on Rocket's apparatus in spite of its creator's death threats at the mere suggestion.

No, despite her apprehension, Rocket knew what he was doing. It took her a while to understand why her favorite spot on the ship was leaning against the stairs, watching his quick, furry fingers piece together a retrofitted laser gunblade, or some outrageously destructive cannon based on micro-singularity tech, or once an ingenious little device that generated temporary negative mass pocket dimensions intended for on-the-go weapon cache access. That one would have been useful back when making a quick kill and an even quicker exit was the totality of her existence.

Engrossed in his designs, Rocket never seemed bothered by her silent observance. Over time, she noticed that he shifted his position at his workstation counter-clockwise until he was facing her and she no longer needed to peer under an arm or around Tiny Groot or through whiskers to catch a glimpse of his latest deadly innovation. It was his unspoken way of welcoming her into his world with implicit acceptance of her inability to share with him why she was so entranced. Her appreciation that he never, ever got fed up and demanded why the hell she was lurking around all the time went equally unexpressed.

She knew why, but to speak it would be treasonous. Ungrateful. Monstrous, even. Crazy, Nebula had called her. Perhaps her sister was right. How else could she possibly revere honor and righteousness yet still ache now and then for the days when she was shackled to malice and dread?

Her sister was a tinkerer. Such an innocuous word for what could be mistaken for a bleak, obsessive pursuit of self-improvement. Gamora hadn't understood her when she was young and too frightened to doubt. To hope. 

When Thanos was finished molding them - warping them - under his machinations, he'd placed them with the rest of his customized warriors. After several years of rigorous reeducation under the baneful tutelage of The Other, Gamora first witnessed her sister tear deliriously at her skin and probe at the circuitry beneath. Gamora let out a strangled shriek but Nebula rushed over to her, sable eyes wild, and clamped her unyielding cybernetic hand over her face so fiercely that she feared her cheekbones would snap.

"Quiet, Gamora," she snarled, with a furtive glance around their darkened sleeping quarters. None of their older siblings stirred in their bunks. "Still your tongue, or I still your heart. This is no one's concern."

And so she'd spent that night gazing blankly across the room at her sister stripping away the synthetic flesh of her arm in pained, stifled cries. When it was done, the dull sheen of Nebula's outstretched limb glinted wetly in the dim as she fluttered her fingers in satisfaction, each alloy joint twitching in perfect sync to her will.

Nebula's shining, starless eyes raised to meet Gamora's. She proclaimed solemnly, as a vow, " _Now it's mine._ " And her hand clenched into a fist with a sound like two blades clashing.

A tall, dark stranger named Ronan was tasked with punishing Nebula as a trivial opening act of loyalty to Thanos. The painted Kree chose to put to use a hulking tank of breathable conductive fluid, a static rod and his glacial resolve for the esteemed undertaking. As she watched her sister seize and writhe in the electrified liquid from amongst the audience of Thanos and his children, a timid whisper inside Gamora pondered how the prideful exposure of their father's extensive alterations to Nebula's limb could possibly have translated into "insolence."

If Rocket changed his mind or his habits or maybe just his preferred imbibements and asked her why she hovered over him near religiously, she wondered how she would respond. Would she tell him that it was comforting? Was it? Did it make her homesick? What would he say if she explained that it reminded her of waking up and feeling again? She might tell him that it was nauseating.

Gamora was the first to discover her sister's further enhancements to her macabre skinned arm. The dent in the metallic wall beside her head was unfortunate enough to be the second.

"Did I ask for your tactical advice, sister?!" A left hook so swift that Gamora was nearly as dismayed by the speed as she was of the potential of it landing propelled her into a fall that only the most generous of spectators would call a "graceless dodge." She landed awkwardly on her side, immediately rolled into a crouch and loped across the enormous chamber. Nebula's smoldering vision tracked Gamora's movements from her spot within the towering shadows but she didn't follow.

"It wasn't my advice, Nebula!" Gamora began once there was a comfortable distance between them, her back to the transparent viewport overlooking deep space . Her sister languidly approached, expression twisted in disdain. "As our instructor, Ronan sent down the orders to-"

"Did Ronan dress you, sister? Did he prepare your rations? Did he brush your pretty hair? No?" Nebula's posture slipped effortlessly back into a fighting stance. Gamora eyed her left side warily. "Then why hold him responsible for your bad call? My priority for the examination was eliminating my target and you chose for Ronan's orders to supersede my objective!"

Gamora threw her hands into the air in an ill-timed eruption of frustration. "Ronan's orders supersede every objective!"

In an instant, Nebula crossed the space between them and grasped Gamora by the throat. "Is that the sum of you, sister? Is this all that you are? What daddy made you for?" Overwhelmed by Nebula's new, shocking strength, Gamora's attempt to pull the back of her sister's skull inward for a headbutt only resulted in a sneer and a decrease of oxygen to her lungs. Gamora's face was harshly yanked nearer her tormentor's and two blazing onyx orbs became her world. "I wonder if Thanos favors you enough to remodify your spine - after all, the one you've got is lacking integrity... structurally speaking, to start." Nebula's right hand suddenly gripped firmly onto the back of Gamora's neck, battle calloused fingertips digging in so deep that the pressure made her vision go hazy. With unremitting force, Nebula tortuously began to pull both hands curled around Gamora's throat apart in opposite directions. 

Ronan's entrance into the command chamber went uncharacteristically unnoticed. "What are you doing?" he boomed, sounding genuinely curious. Both women froze and turned to look at him; Gamora with markedly more effort. Nebula dropped her.

Ronan impassively regarded her crumpled form coughing and gasping on the lustrous floor before facing Nebula. "Your Father wishes to see you for your report. He is displeased. I daresay more so than even myself."

The warship dipped imperceptibly as the four grim, cloaked pilots steering the Dark Aster's navigation orbs tensed at their master's tone. 

Nebula began to speak, stopped herself, and ground out between clenched teeth, "Sounds about right." She'd stalked halfway to the exit by the time Ronan noticed.

"Stop. Come here."

With an hysterical rush of glee and trepidation, Gamora caught the tremor in her sister's step as she returned to their commander. When Nebula reached them, Gamora gingerly lifted herself to stand by Ronan's side and pointedly rolled her shoulders with a loud pop. How those black eyes glared.

"What is this?" The Accuser pointed to the peculiar panel on Nebula's left arm, which he'd never noted before. "How have you degraded your father's specifications now?" He didn't touch her arm. Wouldn't.

The corners of Nebula's lips twitched. "Just striving to be the best me that I can be, Ronan." She glanced fleetingly at Gamora, expecting a retort, but her sister mutely maintained her poise at Ronan's side.

His sharp teeth flashed briefly; cruelly. "You have been forbidden from distorting Thanos' design. You know this. You must surely know what consequence your disobedience begets.” Gamora studied her sister as she caved in on herself, vitality draining from her countenance like lifeblood from a fatal blow.

“Of course, Ronan. I'll go see him right away,” Nebula listlessly agreed. Without a backward glance, her laggard steps carried her out of the room, shoulders sunk.

Korath sheepishly slinked out from behind a pillar to the left, pale blue eyes scanning the floor. "I dropped the charger to my concussive pistol in here earlier," was his absent-minded explanation. He walked in a circle, checking under his feet every few steps. "Has anyone seen it? The lights are red on mine."

Ronan and Gamora gave no response. Taking the hint, Korath excused himself from the chamber. "It's fine, I can just get another from the armory. I'll take my leave of you. Master. Gamora." With a quick, flustered salute, Korath disappeared from sight as the burnt silver door slid closed. 

"I found it some time ago, of course. Lump of Xandarian-made mechanical excrement." Ronan muttered, seemingly to himself. "I will make certain that he loses the next one, as well."

His attention finally shifted to Gamora. She battled the urge to shudder. "You have done well," he decreed. "You should be quite... relieved."

She was. And yet a sour sensation wormed its way into her gut and refused to still.

Gamora didn't see Nebula until late in the night, when she arrived at their shared living quarters on the Dark Aster. Her sister was already in her bunk, colorless linens pulled over her body and facing the wall.

Thanos declined to commission Ronan with punishing Nebula for her latest insubordination. According to what Ronan later mentioned with great discontent before Gamora retired to rest, Thanos had elected not to rectify Nebula's transgression at all. He told her that her father hadn't raised a hand to her sister. Ronan was notorious for being humorless, but perhaps that day Gamora had beheld his first stark attempt at a joke.

The following dawn, Gamora awoke to grunting and an insistent slamming sound emanating from the direction of the entrance that echoed all around her living quarters. The gently synthesized lilt of the distressed grumbling was quite plainly produced by her sister.

“What better time to throw a temper-tantrum than first thing in the damn morning, right Nebula?!” Gamora shouted from her bunk.

The banging noise became frantic. With a growl, Gamora leapt from her bunk and stormed over to Nebula. 

She was attacking the door panel.

“What is _wrong_ with you-”

Nebula's left arm was gone.

Without a word, Gamora blew passed Nebula, slapped both hands down onto the entry control console and changed the settings from dual hand print to dual ocular confirmation. 

“There,” she breathed, fighting a ferocious bolt of panic. She painstakingly kept her eyes averted from Nebula's maimed body, shrinking away from the rage and humiliation that doubtless marred her sister's features. Gamora sensed the threat of a paradigm shift in the charged air between them and realized instinctively, be it from a flare of self-preservation or wispy recollection of once knowing love, that bearing witness to Nebula's helpless, wounded visage would irrevocably change both of their lives.

Gamora made it two steps back to her bed before a heavy boot collided with the rear of her skull and knocked her to the ornate silver floor so hard that her head bounced. By the time the haze cleared, the door was closing and she was alone.

Interlocking parts and fused wires weren't all it took to construct a work of art. Rocket put care into his endeavors, and when he offered his inventions to the crew of the Milano, he did so with immodesty and delight. Having a place of his own in the universe felt good. What place might her sister have discovered here on the Milano? How would Nebula have adapted to this new life if she had only reached out instead of denying her plea in spiteful and spectacular fashion? Who could she have become if Gamora had given her a reason to meet her halfway? Her sister called her crazy. And she must be.

The day that Thanos announced their graduation from training and that they were to be assigned indefinitely to Ronan, it was presented to the both of them as an honor. Xandar would perish, he would receive the ultimate power, and his two youngest children would be promoted to Generals of Thanos. Tears pricked at her eyes and her legs threatened to fail her, but Gamora suppressed her revulsion at Thanos' smug grin. The grin he wore when he killed her parents, when he'd destroyed her whole world. He sat floating untouchable on his golden throne, a blight on life itself.

Nebula stood to her right, whole once again and haunted forever. Gamora knew that she must be replaying a near identical scene in her own mind; reliving the same loss. Surely she would do something, say something. Nebula was the undisciplined one, the brave one. She would rebel, she'd - she'd-

"Thank you, father," Nebula said, preening demurely and bent into a bow. There would be no more punishment for breaking trivial rules anymore. Her sister was alight with the elated delirium of someone who miraculously walked away from a near fatal accident.

Through blurry eyes, Gamora viewed the far away planets, stars and formations cluelessly surrounding them, awaiting their doom. Ronan stared a hole through her head from his place below Thanos' throne and she haltingly repeated her sister's sentiments.

"Yes," she uttered hollowly, "your will is my blade, father." 

So Thanos and Nebula and Ronan smiled together while The Other gave a staccato little clap with his little hands, and Gamora had never been so surreally unhappy since her first day away from home. Her hatred of Thanos, the hatred that drove her to survive him would be meaningless if she became just like him. Something had to be done.

She and Nebula would stop him. Death would not arrive to his beckoning this time.

"Ronan's crusade is preposterous." It wasn't a question. Gamora let her words hang in the air and waited. It didn't take long.

"You've obviously never viewed a Xandarian entertainment news stream, sister," a muffled voice across the room replied. Through the darkness, Gamora spied the silhouette of Nebula's body under her sheets. Her face was buried in the crook of her right arm. "The galaxy will be far better for that vacuous planet's destruction."

Gamora slid out from beneath her covers and padded over the cold, sterile floor. "You don't believe that," she murmured, crouched at Nebula's bedside. "Xandar doesn't deserve to endure what happened to our homeworlds. What happened to us, sister."

Unhurriedly, Nebula shifted and propped herself on her side. Her fixed gaze pierced through Gamora like a knife. " _Sister?_ "

"Yes, Nebula, please-"

"How are you my sister?" Bafflingly, the question stole the air from Gamora's lungs.

"...I - what?"

Nebula rolled her eyes. "Because Thanos chose to take us. He chose for us to be together. And Xandar will die because Thanos chooses it, along with any and all other planets he so chooses. Don't you understand? You can't hate him and call me sister. You can't love me and lament what you are. All that we can do is be pulled along in his wake and hope that we collide with something soft every once in a while."

Nebula said it so matter-of-factly that Gamora wondered at how long she must have been contemplating it. Weighing the futility of resiting Thanos against the possibility of freedom. Even love. It was the first time Gamora had heard the word spoken aloud in years, and certainly never from Nebula's lips. She was moved.

Gamora reached up a hand to cradle her cheek. "That is no kind of hope, sister." Nebula flinched in suspicion but did not recoil away.

"To deny it is the hope of a lunatic," Nebula countered, her nose scrunching in distaste.

Gamora laughed, and it felt amazing. "Then I am one of your lunatics. But preventing Thanos from getting what he wants just this once would not be nearly so impossible as persevering through the brutality that we have. What we've done to others, what's been done to us - we've made it this far. Somehow. We've been defying the odds for nearly our entire lives. If anyone can stop Thanos, it will be the two of us."

Her sister's scowl melted into apprehension. "I doubt it," she whispered, sounding very young. 

"Nebula, listen to me. I have a plan."

The room became very quiet, and the two studied each other with only the distant droning of the massive spinning cells in the power distribution chamber breaking the silence. Something pained crept across Nebula's face and she began to speak, but instead closed her eyes.

Without warning, she snatched the wrist of Gamora's hand touching her face and squeezed with her enhanced strength. Gamora bit back an angry scream and shook her off. Nebula smirked as her sister scooted away, anticipating a second attack. "This pathetic attempt to _infect_ me with your cowardice during your moment of weakness won't be forgotten, Gamora." She casually flipped back over in her bunk, and pulled her bedding up over her head. "You're lucky that I'm too tired to give a shit right now, or you'd be the one taking a public electrocution bath for once."

The sun set on Gamora's hope for a life with her sister, liberated from death and fear and guilt. She would be forced to abandon Nebula and boldly make her way through the universe by herself. Left alone in the night, Gamora grieved a family she never had.

"I'm sorry, sister."

Nebula sighed. "Oh, Gamora. You absolutely are."

Rocket had built her "a toy," he'd called it. Formerly your basic encrypted signal jammer, he'd modified it to scan data for specific life sequence patterns submitted through warp points in the galaxy. His gift was a tracker for her sister. Gamora could tell that he didn't expect for it to find anything but had intended to cheer her up.

Strangely, it worked.

She only checked it when she watched him tinker and fiddle with weapons and volatile devices, lost in thought. Tiny Groot would peer over at her, warm brown eyes bright with curiosity and tenderness. Being with them was a safe place, a little corner of time and space to resonate on the past without shame or judgment. Rocket didn't mind. Maybe there had been a scientist with a more gentle touch than the others, or a fellow subject who held his hand when they were strapped down together. He didn't talk about it, but she knew that he understood.

"Hey, guys!" Peter jumped down the stairs from the flight deck, just barely missing kicking her in the arm. "Oh, sorry. Hey, guys!"

Rocket continued with his project. "What is it, man? I'm fuzzy apples deep in this atom-smasher right now."

"We just got a call from Nova. Guess who's brown and green and gonna kick some space pirate ass all over?" Star-Lord bounced over to Rocket's workstation and held out a finger to the little white pot sitting on it. Tiny Groot slapped his fingertip with an open palm, joy evident in his features. "That's right, my little man! How 'bout you guys, you in or you gonna make Groot and me do all the heavy lifting?"

"I will assist in lifting even the heaviest of objects, Quill! I have already told you!" bellowed Drax from the flight deck above.

Peter nodded appraisingly. "Right. Yup, got Drax on board. You guys yay or nay?" He pointed to Gamora, then immediately to Rocket. "Yay? Yay?"

"Ah mn Gwwtch!" yayed Groot. 

Rocket released the metallic pieces he was screwing together onto the table with a resounding clang. "Guess I'm good to go," he chimed in, attention pinned to Groot flailing around excitedly.

"Gamora?" Peter raised his eyebrows hopefully.

She hesitated, and surveyed the people around her. This was what she had left her past behind for. These reckless, feckless, wonderful people. Was this really what she wanted with her life?

Her fate decided, Gamora finally spoke. "I don't know, Quill. I just think-" She rushed past Peter and took the stairs three at a time to the flight deck. "I think that I'm manning the pilot's chair!"

Peter followed right behind her. "Ah man, no fair! We had a deal, you lost that bet!"

"I don't recall any wager, Peter Quill."

"What?! That's messed up! What happened to honor and all that crap?!"

"Musta got blown up with the Dark Aster, heh buddy?" Rocket asked his companion. He lifted him from the table and carefully positioned Groot's pot under his arm, preparing to ascend the steps. "Ya gotta give a little to get a little, after all."

Groot giggled and smiled widely. "Ah mn Gwwtch."

"Yeah. I think she'll be okay too, pal. Like us, ya know?"

"Where are the rest of our friends? Hurry, we do not wish to do this without your accompaniment!" Drax hollered down to them, and the ship jumped a little as it accelerated.

"We're comin', we're comin'. Everybody ain't got those freakish and hideously long legs, big guy," shouted Rocket, joining his family upstairs.

Gamora wouldn't check Nebula's tracker for quite some time. Whether or not her sister ever entered her orbit again was entirely up to Nebula. Not Thanos or Ronan or even Gamora. Though they were worlds apart, they were sharing freedom together now. And somehow, despite never having each other to lose yet managing to do it anyway, that was comfort enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I really like Gamora and I really like Nebula. And all of the other characters. If you liked the story, please feel free to let me know. Thanks for reading!


End file.
